


Silence/Noise

by FangedAngel



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010) RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-03
Updated: 2012-03-03
Packaged: 2017-11-01 02:02:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FangedAngel/pseuds/FangedAngel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He expected Scott to pay him in kind, silence for silence, but Scott will always save him because Scott is not like him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silence/Noise

The phones ring, landline and mobile alternating until two ringtones become a symphony. Voicemail fills up quickly, and Alex skips one message after the other, lingering only on the ones left by Scott, until Scott’s voice is all he hears, until Scott’s anger is all he knows.

Hours later, he grabs a bag and leaves, the beep of the active alarm and the click of the lock plunging the house into silence.

And the phones ring.

~*~

Days over a month later, Grace picks him up and stops at her favourite cafe on the way to his place.

Alex watches brown sugar and cocoa powder drown in her skinny latte while she tells him of everything he’s missed out on, but all he can hear is Scott’s voice delivering swearwords like punches, and all he can see are the same swearwords, written in black on white and waiting in his e-mail inbox. The shadow of Scott’s anger has enveloped everyone, and Grace tells him that Peter and Bob were almost overcome with relief when they sent the whole team home for three weeks, while they waited for Alex to come back. Grace tells him that Scott’s anger was not loud, but terrifying in its silence, and the look in Scott’s eyes, a tortured sort of fury, was what got to them. They’d tried to help, she says, they’d tried to explain, but Scott would take no explanations, and by the time he fled to LA like a wounded lion, he’d cut himself off from everyone. His anger had become an invisible poison, and the corner of Grace’s lips cannot bear the effort of curling into a smile as she says she hopes for things to return to normal soon.

Alex shakes his head and rubs at his temples. He hadn’t solved anything by hiding, after all, and now he’s haunted by Scott’s anger, Scott’s words, Scott’s pain-choked fury, Scott’s desperation.

“I don’t know how to fix this,” he says, and Grace’s hand covers his, a whisper of comfort.

“If anyone can, that’s you. Just talk to him. You know this runs deeper than you disappearing for a few weeks,” she says, earnest gaze and soft-spoken truth.

She laughs when he drinks the rest of her coffee, and then she drives him home and leaves him to pick up the pieces of himself.

~*~

The house feels foreign, for some reason, somehow cold, deprived of Honolulu’s sun. For a moment, he feels alienated, like he doesn’t belong, like he’s never belonged. Dusty’s not here to greet him, and it all feels wrong. He drops his bag and catches sight of himself in the mirror, the sharpness of his cheekbones almost startling, even to him. He turns away and flexes his arm, trying to ease the tension that pains his almost-healed shoulder.

The landline doesn’t ring and his mobile phone is set to silent. It’s almost too quiet, until Alex turns the stereo on and tries to find some comfort in what used to be familiar.

~*~

It’s the middle of the night when the doorbell rips the silence to shreds, but Alex doesn’t even flinch. He’s been sitting in the darkness of his bedroom, on the edge of the bed, anticipating something he couldn’t explain, something he couldn’t put into words, his whole body tense, his mind running wild. The doorbell doesn’t surprise him. It’s only the next logical step in this illogical situation.

His hands are shaking as they reach for the locks, but he’s calm, he’s even peaceful. He expected the torture to go on for a while, he expected Scott to pay him in kind, silence for silence, but Scott will always save him because Scott is not like him.

When Alex opens the door, Scott is there, ruffled hair and sleep-tinged eyes and poised for battle. It couldn’t have been anyone else, not at this hour, not with this urgency, none of those who know the code to the gate would have intruded, only the one person who could not be seen as an intrusion.

Scott looks at Alex, biting almost viciously at his lip, shoulders squared, arms tense, hands curled into fists, like he’s about to take a swing and aim that vicious hook of his at Alex’s jaw. Alex looks back at him, kind of angles his head and hopes it’s enough of an invitation, and Scott steps inside and Alex shuts the door, locks clicking in place. Scott is pale in the warm artificial light in the lobby, except for the twin spots of dark pink colouring his cheeks. They stand, sizing each other up, and Alex displays his weakness when he crosses his arms in front of himself, as if warding off an attack. Scott notices, eyes flickering to the movement, at the same moment when Alex notices that his hands are not the only ones shaking, that Scott’s curled his fingers into fists to hide it.

“What the fuck, Alex? I went fucking insane worrying about you, I didn’t know what the fuck was happening to you and you just fucking disappeared. I had to hear about where you were from the fucking tabloids, I had to learn about your problems from the fucking press.”

The words lack heat now, the dying embers of Scott’s anger, but the lilt of pain in them is somehow worse. Alex recoils and wishes for a fight instead, but this is what he’s given, and this is what he has to fix.

“I’m sorry,” Alex says, and he knows it’s not enough, and he stares at the floor, fidgeting because he’s never reacted well to having to stand still, and all the shadows in his mind seem to be out to play now, triggered by Scott’s eyes and Scott’s face and Scott being so far, impossibly far.

“You’re fucking sorry,” Scott says, growls, and Alex expects the fist in the jaw now.

Instead, he is slammed into the nearest wall, his shoulder protesting, his breath driven out of his lungs in a gasp, the breath that Scott claims, his lips on Alex’s, his teeth biting down and marking his desperation on Alex’s lips, his tongue dancing around Alex’s to the tune of his need.

“Fuck you, man, fuck you, do you know what it did to me, do you know how it ripped me apart, that I couldn’t be with you,” Scott whispers brutally, between kisses, between nips at Alex’s jaw that redden Alex’s skin.

Alex kisses him back, bites at him back, sucks on the skin of Scott’s neck, forgetting how to breathe, gasping like he’s run a marathon and he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care. He can’t feel the pain in his shoulder anymore, doesn’t feel the need for the pills that used to alleviate that pain. It’s like the past few weeks, past few months, mean nothing, specks of dust, because it all lead to this, the only outcome.

“Didn’t know how to tell you, didn’t want you to know, didn’t want to be so stupid, I’m sorry,” and he knows that he makes no sense but Scott just half-laughs, half-sobs in reply and Scott just accepts it and kisses him again.

Alex almost forgot his own strength when he was away but now he uses his arms to haul Scott higher and press him tighter to his own body, because he needs to feel Scott , he needs it to anchor himself, to realise that he’s here, he’s here, it’s over.

“It hurt. It hurt, Scott, I didn’t know what to do. I just wanted the pain to be over,” and it’s all there, his fear, his helplessness, his loneliness, the frustrating madness of not being able to sleep because of the pain in his shoulder, the agony of each missed call, of each unreplied e-mail.

He should have known that Scott would understand, that Scott’s seen this –and worse – before. He knows now, because he can see the way Scott’s looking at him, all unblinking intensity.

“I’ll always be here for you, you stupid asshole. You don’t get to run away from me, Alex, not when you need me,” Scott’s words, whispered against his skin, kissed into his skin.

Alex holds him, lets himself be held, and the nightmarish quality of the last few months fades, blurred edges becoming sharp again. He can feel Scott breathing, palms pressed to Scott’s back, and it’s enough. It’s more than enough. It’s all he needs.

In the morning, they’ll pick Dusty up together, and she will forgive him as she always does, too happy to jump all over Alex and Scott to give Alex the evil eye for leaving her in a luxurious dog hotel where she’s been treated like royalty in his absence. In the afternoon, they’ll walk their dogs together along the beach, and Scott will smile at Alex and maybe hold his hand. When the sun sets, they’ll go home together, the home filled with their silence and their noise, the home that will be welcoming once more.


End file.
